Grrl Power #666 – Demon stuff!

I hadn’t planned on cutting away from the battle again, but someone pointed out that page 666 was coming up, and I knew I had to do something featuring Dabbler. (Even though the actual number of the beast is 616 but someone translating something one day decided 666 was punchier and just changed it. It’s almost like the whole thing was made up or something.) If I can figure out how, I’ll bump page 663 up to 665, so the pages cutting into the battle scene will be back to back.

Anyway, back to this page. Dabbler’s apron isn’t censored for the sake of the comic, it’s supposed to be actually printed that way, so anyone looking at it in real life would see that Japanese mosaic effect and will fill in dirty stuff to the limit of their imagination. Imagine it was a picture of a tentacle, or a picture of two butts touching, if you’re Tina Belcher, or a picture of a ▛▓▞▓▚▛.

As the commander of the team, Maxima should probably be a little more stoic, and not wandering around the base at 3:00 am in her pajamas. She’s obviously taken a sort of motherly shine to Sydney, and is frustrated she can’t punch this problem in the face to fix it.

Discussion (628) ¬

Even though the actual number of the beast is 616 but someone translating something one day decided 666 was punchier and just changed it. It’s almost like the whole thing was made up or something.
First: the jury is still out on whether it’s 616 or 666.
Second: you try translating near-millennia old Greek that reads like a bad acid trip and see how coherent your translation is.

It is amazing how much numerology made its way into Christianity, both within the bible and outside of it. The numbers 3 and 7 have a repeated significance within the bible. The number thirteen being unlucky is because there were supposedly 12 disciples plus Jesus at the last support, making 13. I guess all the women and children and servers didn’t count at all. But I guess when the source is utterly invented bullshit it’s not really surprising when more bullshit gets introduced by the kind of weak willed people who would actually believe in any of the bullshit in the first place.

Don’t so very many of the characters and stories in the bible make God look bad?

God to Satan “Job is my man!”
Satan “Meh, he wouldn’t be your man except for the fact that he is rich and powerful.”
God “Feel free to impoverish him, afflict him with diseases, and kill all of his kids, you’ll see that he’s still my man.”
Satan “Sick, dude, but since that’s kinda my thing I’ll get right on that. Can I dip his weenie in gold? That’s also kinda my thing.”

Jonah “Nah God, I don’t want to work for you.”
God “Enjoy getting tossed overboard because I rigged the dice, swallowed by a whale (yeah, right), and spat out on unfamiliar shores!”
Jonah (after some time in the whale) “Ok, you’ve tortured me long enough, I’ll do anything to make it stop!”
God “There, see how easy that was?”
Jonah (after completing his task for God) “Man is it hot!”
God “What the hell do you expect, I’m all powerful but not a weather man! But here, have some shade under this plant.”
God (Hehe, I’m such a stinker Ima gonna have this worm eat the plant so no more shade. And since I am all powerful and really can be a weatherman, I’ll also send more scorching heat)
Jonah (dying of exposure in the heat and elements) “I am suffering so much that I want to die.”
God “How selfish of you to worry about the shade from that plant, you dick!”

Really, it just goes on and on and on without end. The greatest contributor to my atheism was reading the bible. Before that I was an ignorant child who believed the lies of his elders. Fortunately I read it long before adulthood, and didn’t live in ignorance even as a child for very long.

Actually as I recall Mary was approached by an angel and had the situation explained to her and her response was “Let it be done unto me” or something of the sort. So while it’s a fair case to make that there was tremendous pressure on her to submit, at least just going by the text it was a consensual impregnation.

Similar here, can’t remember the ending, butt it was because it made me (okay, didn’t physically make me) view all books (and TV shows and movies etc) as a glimpse into another world, and being helpless to do anything butt watch left me angry for years

Have gradually grown calmer about it over the years, butt some things still can’t read or watch if know prior what is going to happen

It is the first one I think from when he started writing again I’ve never been able to read it since it doesn’t track in his normal style. Everything after that one is better, not Stranger in a Strange Land great but good and solid.

Stranger in a Strange Land was a good novel, but it was still written in the portion of his life where he used author inserts and his screeds against monotheism and monogamy were heavy handed and obvious. I appreciate novels where the author feels that telling a story is more important than telling the reader about his own dissatisfaction with the current culture. And let me be clear: I believe I have made my own views on monotheism well known. The fact that I agree with Heinlein on that subject has nothing to do with my preference for an author who is capable of expressing their screeds in a much more minimalist fashion.

The only books of his I’ve read so far are “The Moon is a harsh Mistress” and “For Us, the Living”

The latter I recommend to everyone; but not because it’s a good novel. In fact, it’s the most horrible novel I ever read, and I wish for half the characters to die in a trainwreck. But the awesome thing about it is it’s basically macroeconomics 101 through 506 distilled down into a single short “easy” to read book. And not the fake-economics sponsored by Koch Industries’s bribes to colleges to force future economics students to unwittingly encourage supporting their business with unresearched tripe, but real economics.

Heh… “translating near-millennia old Greek” is actually pretty easy. Any modern Greek that has finished high-school* should be able to do it. The language is more or less the same still, except for a few peculiarities.

I had a DM who lived on 555, he would always say he was the neighbor of the beast. I once asked him is he would of preffered 888, the neigbor of god. His response was “Nah, I would never ve able to do stuf like this…” and demestratred what a chemistry major can do with household chemicals and a cinderblock… what is now an ex cinder block.

Oh yes. And a level inappropriate boss battle at that. The only question is whether it’s level inappropriate for Sydney or the thing (my bets on the thing, remove it and the comic continues, remove Sydney and probably won’t). :-)

It’s level-inappropriate for Sidney, on the other hand Sidney is ridiculously OP, so it all rounds down to power leveling. If you’re not pushing your challenge limit you’re not trying hard enough after all.

Actually that whole panel looks a bit off. Don’t get me wrong: it’s about 10,000% better than anything I could produce. But it’s only about 80% of what I would pay for. Only that panel. I’d totally pay for the rest of the comic,

Well, Anvil probably got a decent kinetic charge off helping Mathias stop his chronic nosebleeds, And Les; well, considering his power-set… I’m going to assume getting punted into the stratosphere for a dirty Limerick (hey it was an effective distraction) was a thing at some point.

Nah man, Anvil probably is also maternal in nature so post crying puffyness, (couldn’t sleep so came down)

And Achilles, can probably only be aged by internal mental stress, and is probably more than aware of Maxima’s current mental state. He seems like his backstory indicates he’s a lot older than he looks. So I can imagine that he was a big part of Maxima figuring out her powers.

She could have done that. Sure. Sydney just wouldn’t have been accomplishing anything by doing so. She is stuck on a destroyed alien planet without any food, so her time is quite limited. She certainly doesn’t know Dabbler has a plan. To Sydney, this is a very extreme survival situation, and her orbs are her only real asset.

Agreed. Sydney knows ARC will do everything they can to get her back, but what she DOESN’T know is whether they have any means to actually do so. Of which I might point out, if there is a way for ARC to rescue her, she hasn’t learned about it yet and has no idea that it exists.

And she certainly believes, probably correctly, that it would be a mistake to wait for rescue without trying to work out her own solution to the problem. Especially when your only concrete idea of what that rscue might look like is “I bet they can figure something out.”

She has to act as if she’s lost in space and there’s nothing her comrades can do about it. Even if that turns out not to be true, it’s the best guess she has, and it’s better to do something than it is to do nothing.

She already knows leveling up is a power she has, and there’s some speed stuff she hasn’t unlocked yet that indicates its extra-special. Trying to level and get that secret-yet-hinted resource is her best bet. (Either that, or the lightbee and seeing if she can level it to teleport to any place she’s been before, but that’s an even wilder bet than unlocking warp speed.)

Plus, she already saw how close Squiddly came to putting a hole in Mr Buble, so she tries to get right in his face rather than leave the area?
And yes, fleeing to the moon didn’t work (and what would she have done if there was a whole mess of Squiddly’s just hanging around up there?), butt fleeing the country was still viable

she’s dealing with a race that has faster then light travel, sure she can hop around the planet but these aliens are here to kill Sydney. so all that does is buy time for the world ending aliens to pull out the world ending nuke and blast the whole planet and her with it.

By picking a fight with some giant alien that has already displayed enough firepower to damage Mr Buble (the only thing that is allowing Sydney to survive)?
And she only picked the fight because she is viewing it like a vidya game and defeating it will give her a powerup

I’d like to thank you for spending the required time on Dabblers backside. Also, I love Math’s comment, and agree, and I was going to ask the very question you answered regarding the text on Dabbler’s apron. that’s genius. Love Maxima’s shirt, too.

as a person with adhd near or beyond sydney’s level. I can best describe ADHD as “An inability for a person to regulate their body’s energy consumption and use.”

Quite literally, it cannot be easily described beyond, take some speed, extend the effects for 12 hours.

my meds last for 9-12 hours, depending on my body each day. sydney would literally just be exhausted after 6-10 hours and ready to sleep. (though could quite possibly naturally produce adrenaline due to the nature of adhd.)

TLDR, Sydney would just be extra quirky and giddy without her meds. quite impulsive too.

As an Aspie, (with a hig h metabolism) I have learned the importance of meds and having back ups. As a commuting colege student, having 3 or four sets of pills with you is makes those late night study sessions that leave you at your freinds dorm for three days in a row, keeps you sane.

Take it from a diabetic — when you need a medicine to remain functional, you DON’T forget it very often. In Sydney’s case, she just fought a battle (at the stake house) where her meds wearing off put a serious hole in her ability to do her job. I’m sure that Sydney has her meds in the utility kit, just in case.

As a diabetic who also has ADHD…I do not forget my pills (pre-insulin type 2) for the diabetes…but in terms of priority, I can survive for longer without the ADHD meds. Concentrating and focusing will be shot, but I won’t have the health complications that unchecked blood sugar will cause. On the other hand, the brain fog is awful and disrupts your executive decision making abilities. In combat or during a crisis, this would be bad, possibly even fatal.

Max did comment on making sure Sydney had some generic versions on hand on base “days ago” (Dave inserted a handful of ADHD-forgetful half-failed training montage days between then and now), and I’m quite certain that in putting together her bat-belt kit, Sydney made sure to include meds for that. Why am I so sure?

Normally, the most common medicine for ADHD (amphetamine; you literally do NOT get high off of it, because it just doesn’t work that way on people with ADHD) has to have a special prescription that you hand-carry to the pharmacy, they can’t just call it in, and unless you can figure out how to work things with your doctor, you don’t have enough of the meds on hand to have more than a couple days’ worth in spares…because both insurance companies and pharmacies are very strict about adhering to federal regulations when it comes to federally controlled substances.

Halo, however, has been hired by the federal government. Government (quasi-Military) Employment Hath Its Privileges. It also has Expectations. Such as the expectation that she be fully functional (or close enough to count) for combat. So she WILL have spares…and be EXPECTED to carry them in her field dress / kit.

In this scenario, Sydney is going to be able to ride the ‘high’ of combat for quite a while, the adrenaline and dopamine feedbacks of intense danger and success are going to keep her focused on what she’s doing right now. Combined with the energy/dopamine cost of task-switching, she’s probably in hyper-focus mode now, and for the rest of combat will have trouble noticing anything not directly related to her current goal.

Once combat is over and the rushes fade, she’s going to be useless until she gets a lot of sleep. Especially with ADHD as bad as hers, stimulants strong enough to overcome the post battle fatigue (with resulting lower-than-normal dopamine levels, as she has a reduced amount available to begin with) would probably be bad for her heart.

And it just occurred to me that part of the love for spicy food might be related to her ADHD, the spicy kick gives a sensation stimulation which she probably finds mentally soothing.

That’s not what she said, she simply said that she made the call, which probably meant to people who could get them to Alari (people who are not The Council), and they just have to wait for them to come pick them up

DaveB, please don’t change the intermissions, they are great.
These “Meanwhile” cut-outs actually work better when they actually cut the action scenes, and not jump back 6-10 pages worth of an action scene so that you will have to narrate the page with “While Sydney was upgrading her spheres” or “While Sydney was giving SKREE Monster an enema”

However, this particular page could’ve worked better as #662, or as a double sized page where this page cuts panel 4 of the current #662 and the rest continues as is, just to make Dabblers last line come as a surprise… we already know she’s fighting the monster (with moderate success, might I add)

Moderate success? She is inside it´s shield (his big weapons are outside), it lost limbs, multiple eyes, has deep cuts in his head and other parts and Sidney has a still an unbroken shield and massive functional firepower. That´s not moderate that is devastating. It is only still in one piece because she restrains herself. She could just stay with shield up and use the slice and dice beam permanently instead of short cut bursts.

But it just shoved her out of the range of its shield when it rammed her into the ground. So technically, her next shots should be deflected easily, until she uses the Lightbee to sneak back into Squidward’s shields

Since she was still able to cut off his – are these fingers? – body parts i would argue she is still inside the shield. Maybe the shield cant be turned off and on in battle conditions or it can´t drop it because it also provides life support.

But even if this thing should be toast in the near future – there is still a space ship and there could be more then one of these. You would expect it to be the endboss type but in more realistic scenarios you would need more then one to cover enough ground on a planet if you attack it. The fighters don´t seem to have enough firepower for this kind of destruction so if this thing is a city buster there should be more then one.

I thought this was a great time to cut into this intermission. Sydney’s last comment was “But if I had a few extra hands, this fight would be over already!” Cut scene into Dabbler, with her four hands, doing something rather ordinary: cooking.

More demonstration of poor leadership skills from Maxima. I guess you can see this in superhero comics, but Maxima has the backstory, and the rank, of a career officer. A career officer is never supposed to let their despair show in front of the troops. The fact that they are all up in the middle of the night is enough to show that they all can’t just sleep knowing that Sydney is alone on a devastated alien world with other, murderous aliens. But Maxima shouldn’t be allowing more than the fact of her sleeplessness clue in anyone to how she feels, and especially not to the point of issuing an “I don’t care. Sort it out yourselves” to a blatant violation of an earlier standing order she had issued.

It’s not even ‘just’ a blatant violation of that earlier order, it also involves tying up a new recruit who is still suffering from a mental condition caused by a spell. That’s worthy of a good chewing out and reprimands for everyone involved, since none of them are just supposed to be sitting there while something like that is going on.

What is supposed to be happening is that Maxima is supposed to be leading, with the support of the senior NCOs and officers. The rest of them are supposed to be following, again with the support of the senior NCOs.

What isn’t supposed to be happening is the majority of the team missing out on sleep i.e. combat readiness while simultaneously watching a burlesque show put on by a civilian contractor and engaging in the bondage/hazing/mental torment of the newest member of the team.

Maxima started off ok with her first sentence. “What are you doing? It’s 3:00 AM” It should have quickly moved to her cracking down on the naked apron cooking that she previously issued orders against, and of course adding panties was just a way to try to skirt the letter rather than the intent, getting J-wok untied and out of the room as per again her previous orders, and then sending everyone to bed so that whenever the call does come they are as prepared as possible for action.

Instead she allows severe lapses in discipline to go almost unremarked and then has what looks like a miniature collapse by slumping to the floor. In front of her troops. The people who count on her leadership to keep them alive. Morale cannot be maintained by that sort of behavior. Not only does allowing the repeated violation of orders completely undermine your authority but not maintaining the command aura in front of your troops will get people killed in combat.

You are aware that Archon is not your typical form of armed forces, aren’t you?
Maxi is tired and drained as fuck, she is not some golden robot with a titanium rod shoved up her arse

Jabbers does not look that uncomfortable, and probably agreed to being tied to the chair if it allowed her to stay
Les doesn’t need sleep, Math would not be part of any off-world operation, and Anvil can recharge simply by walking

I know that going point by point with you is, heh, pointless, but I’ll do it anyway because I’m bored. I mean, I already pointed out most of this and all you really managed with your response was to fail in your reading comprehension or the equivalent of ‘Nu-uh!” But whatever.

– Being an atypical branch of the armed forces does not mean that discipline and command structure can just disappear without consequences.

– A good leader remains aware of their own state of mind and does not allow that to be shown to their people.

– Re: J-wok, two points, one already made:
— “Not looking uncomfortable” is the equivalent to the defense “the unconscious girl I raped didn’t say no.” She is under a spell which is interfering with her ability to say no. Tying her up and allowing her to long after Dabbler is just cruel under the circumstances. Hell, tying her up for any reason at all, your personal and very subjective assessment of her comfort level notwithstanding, is just wrong, period.
— And already made: She and Dabbler are under orders from their superior officer to not be in the same room with each other, and everyone in the room should be well aware of this.

– You are inventing abilities for Achilles and Anvil, unless you care to cite from canon where it is said that neither require sleep. And you’ve invented a limitation for Math, who is in no way other than in your mind unable to participate in an off-world mission. He is a power level 7, benching him for invented reasons would just be stupid.

You are an absolute expert in all levels of Command Structure and Elite Special Ops, got it

Les is unaffected by everything, so logically that would mean needing to sleep (most people require sleep because their body physically demands it, if you go without sleep the toxins in your body build up and you will die, neither of which affect him)DaveB himself has stated that Anvil is constantly building up a charge, even if it’s a minor one, simply by walking
Maxi has already benched Math
Everybody in the room is already aware of the orders keeping Dabbles and Jabbers separate, which is why she was tied down, the fact she is not struggling or straining in the slightest implies that she willingly allowed herself to be tied, and quite possibly was her idea

You are pretty good at linking completely unrelated things and arriving at wildly speculative conclusions, however. Anvil builds up a kinetic energy charge from walking, great. Now how exactly does that mean that she does not need sleep?

On the one hand, yes, the discipline in this outfit is laughable, and I may even bring that up in the comic at some point, like when they interact with the other branches of the DoD, they probably respect Archon’s power, but consider it “The Party School”

This comic would be very different if Max was a proper commissioned-officer-hardass with everyone. Potentially still enjoyable, but very very different.

Officers don’t have to be hardasses. I have served with and worked with many officers who never raised their voice and certainly never ranted and raved. But that’s probably because I’ve never seen anyone act like Dabbler and Math in front of said officers, either.

All the interactions I have seen, and it has been many, have been a respectful exchange, with the contractor offering their expertise and the officer thanking them and then deciding what to do. I have been that contractor in many cases. I have trained many military personnel in the use of some specialized equipment, and I’ve never had an officer or an enlisted just be a jackass towards me because I wasn’t Army at the time, or because they were not happy with my performance in any manner, which to my knowledge was never the case. The classroom environment, even if it was “in the field” (but not anywhere near combat) was cordial but pretty casual. If the class was just full of enlisted the NCOs didn’t try to ‘lead’ or dominate the enlisted. All that would have accomplished would be to interfere with their training. It was very much like a regular college classroom environment, with ranks forgotten while learning was taking place.

For lower level contractors that aren’t experts in their field but are simply doing a job that the Army no longer does (like manning mess halls), the meaningful (as in more than just a thank you or other acknowledgement of some task performed) interactions I’ve seen have been fewer but they have still been respectful on both sides. But again, I’ve never seen a civilian contractor be an utter jackass towards any military personnel. That kind of behavior is probably weeded out fairly efficiently by the company itself, and discipline wouldn’t fall to the officer in any event, s/he would simply have a word with whomever is the poc for the contract.

And they were human beings of course, but I never saw one drop the command aura around the enlisted or junior officers except perhaps during very light events such as celebrations, etc. Certainly never a day after a combat mission which is still technically underway and is left hanging with the most junior member of the team (except I guess J-wok might have that title now) MIA.

And that’s your experience. But your experience and views cannot be applied to every military character in existence, as there has been commanders who have broken down in front of troops in every war.
And Maxima is more exasperated at her own helplessness in this situation, she’s used to be being the strong one.
If she was such a poor leader as you see her, she would never have been placed in charge of a squad in the first place, unless you want to call General Faulk a bad leader too as he chose her. Faulk (and DaveB) knows Maxima better than you do, and he trusts her to lead to the best of her ability.

As she has been portrayed in this comic, she is a terrible officer and a terrible leader. That’s not the fault of the character but of the author, who has admitted to knowing very little about the armed services or even the difference between ranks. That’s not an exact quote, but I think I got the spirit of his statement accurate enough.

Oberon is right. but the fact of the matter is that the way Maxima is portrayed in this comic creates a dynamic tension, character development and an interesting story. if she were portrayed as an officer should be portrayed it would be a serious challenge to get the maxima we know and love to show through, a challenge that does not translate really well in this type of media. On the other hand, though Officer comportment is a way of conserving and extending power and respect. whos’ to say that with their various power levels and Maxima being so OP that her personal power is never in question. since we don’t have supers in this universe so the things we know will work may change with regard to supers.

Yeah, in the real world, Maxi would be the proper hardarse no nonsense pain in the arse commanding officer that is hated and disrespected at every opportunity, butt fortunately this is a webic that focus on the humour and the camaraderie of a group of atypical superheroes trying to make the world safer for the scum to survive and exploit all sides

You really just have no clue, and almost every time you post something you just widen the areas about which it is known that you have no clue.

See my above post for how the real world mostly works for this particular case. I’m sure there can be exceptions, people are human and capable of failure after all which you can no doubt relate to intimately, but I’ve never seen them.

I always thought Dabbler deserved at least a few hours worth of chewing out for doing that in the first place. But knowing her, it might take some kind of mana-burn device to keep her in line. Maybe there’s something in what’s left of Sciona’s base.

I’m sure the fair use rules apply, but panel one should have an asterisk/footnote attributing “My Hips Don’t Lie” to Shakira.
Have you seen this?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbYbPAcoGoU
Not the version I wanted to show…with the guys at the microphone.

For characters that are not being continually drawn, maybe just doodle them on the side, while you are drawing the characters for that page, draw one of the other characters so you don’t ‘forget’ how to draw them (that was what happened with Anvil when she appeared again during the Wars Rumble)

I understand Max’s frustration. She is in the strangest position on Earth and no one really understands her well enogh because no one could ever have the same experiences as her. Being an Officer and the most powerful super, none truly can understand.

High ranking Officers should be able to confide in other high ranking Officers. Supreme Court Justices, even on opposite sides of the isle, still can be friends, because only other Supreme Court Justices understand what that is like. But who is there for Max to truly confide in, only her subordinates.

Normally, this would be a terrible idea, but there really is no one else to talk to about her feelings.

Max would probably be good at leading a group of voluntary soldiers but unfortunately superpowers don’t come to the ideal soldier in this universe. So instead she have to try and keep this group of weirdoes and pervs in line as good as she can. It’s like herding cats ,but she knows it have to be done. A dysfunctional group of superheroes is preferable to them going super villains or renegades.

I think also, she never really felt her subordinates were in danger. She is faster than a speeding bullet after-all. Thinking about it more, this might very well be the first time someone is MIA under her command.

Sure, she may have seen other American soldiers die, and that is always Hell. But it is a worse kind-of feeling when it is your own soldiers. A unit does become a family, especially in the fields of war.

I miss the old art style we had when the comic started, or even around the middle before we went all painted and realistic looking. :< Yes, it looks like much better art, but I feel like we lost something to get here. :<

I’m just going to say this here and hope that I’m right about my little theory. I think that Math and Anvil are in some kind of relationship, because there’s been a few hints here and there. Math knew that she was ticklish, someone said that that Anvil was seeing a ‘short guy’ and they do seem to make a good couple. Math would be faithful to her,but at the same time I get the feeling that he’d still be who he is, a complete wanna be ladies man who can never actually seal the deal

Not canon unless I missed something in one of DaveB’s notes; definitely not supported in the comic itself, at least beyond the (weak) points mentioned above. First time I’ve seen the theory myself, but it’s an amusing ‘ship.

You are an idiot, and reynard61 is exactly right. Good leaders do worry about their subordinates. What they don’t do is allow their worry and the worry of their crew about a missing member completely see discipline go to hell, and impact the combat readiness of their crew when they might be called back to the battle at any moment. They might be in their cushy HQ, but this is the first night after their trip through the portal and Dabbler said in this very comic that she didn’t know when she’d get a response to whatever call she has put out for assistance or information or whatever. They need to be alert and prepared for whatever happens, and Maxima and the senior NCOs are supposed to ensure that this is the case.

Greetings! Please check out my article titled “ENIGMA” which can be found on the Hermetic Library Website. My article proposes a new perspective for reconciling the 666 vs. 616 debate. My pen-name for the article is “DLUX”. This article was published in the journal (THE CRYPTOGRAM) which is the journal of the American Cryptogram Association. I am a member of the ACA. ENJOY! Walter C. Cambra (DLUX)

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